Ahab's Leg

[fin john]

Folks,

 

     The third paragraph of this chapter, "Ahab's Leg," chapter 106, needs interpreting. I present a digest form:

 

 "so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. . . . To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft-cymballing, round harvest moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not forever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birthmark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers."

 

    Why is Melville so morose? What is this sad birtmark in the brow of Man?

 

  John Gretchko

[Alvin Hass]

"...the gods themselves are not forever glad...."  Now there's an interesting insight.  Of all the world's mythologies, is there any is which the gods (and demigods and nymphs, etc.) are forever glad?  The Norse gods are not even immortal.  They know that they are doomed.  The Celtic Cuchulain, son of the sun god, dies in battle after giving away his last spear to a satirical poet who threatened to lampoon him as stingy.  (First victim of the media?)  The Greco-Romans may have had it a little better.  When they lost their lovers, they could put them in the stars or turn them into gemstones, but they could feel pain, physical as well as emotional--if we can trust Homer and Aristophanes.      But none of those gods, not even Zeus, was all-powerful.  What about the God of Abraham, worshipped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims,  the All-Powerful, the Eternal, and, as the Kaballists put it, the Ein-Sof, the Limitless One?  Are scriptural references to this Being's emotions to be taken literally?  Or are they poetic?  What did Ahab think?  What did Melville think? Regards, Normie   --- On Sun, 7/25/10, fin john <stein....@gmail.com> wrote:

-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ishmailites" group. To post to this group, send email to ishma...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ishmailites...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ishmailites?hl=en.

[fin john]

Normie,

       I had never considered the pain of the gods. Still, this seems strange for Melville to write. I am sure that he did not believe in a multitude of gods. Then why write it so? Thanks for your insight. Or what did he mean by gods? Tis puzzling.        John Gretchko

[Stephen Hoy]

John and Normie ponder over "the gods themselves" phrase from Ch 106 Ahab's Leg 

...both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. . . . To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft-cymballing, round harvest moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not forever glad.

 

I suspect Melville is inspired by Schiller: "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."  The passage is familiar to me from a work by Isaac Asimov, who gives it a multi-versal treatment, while Melville is merely particularizing the universal [inside joke--couldn't resist]. Wikiquote gives a bit of context that helps support the idea that Melville is adapting Schiller's philosophy:

 

Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who art thou then if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurbed steed,
Must, vainly shrieking with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
Accursed, who striveth after noble ends,
And with deliberate wisdom forms his plans!
To the fool-king belongs the world.

• Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans), Act III, sc. vi (as translated by Anna Swanwick) (1801)

This parses into: ...When bound to folly, exalted reason must plunge headlong into the abyss...

Compare Ch 41 Moby Dick: " in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished..." In the next paragraph we find a reference to Ahab's darker part, a genealogic passage that parallels the "ancestry and posterity of grief" as in Ch 106, ending with "the great gods mock that captive king."

John's query about "the sad birthmark on the brow of man" needs a bit more study, but seems likely to bear fruit.

---

From: fin john <stein....@gmail.com>
To: ishma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, July 28, 2010 8:21:27 AM
Subject: Re: Ahab's Leg